Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans his Department has to amend the assessment criteria for SATs due to the covid-19 outbreak.

The Department acknowledges current concerns raised in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak. It recognises that pupils have missed a critical period of their education due to school closures in the 2019/20 academic year and further disruption in the 2020/21 academic year. As a consequence, the Department is planning that primary assessments will take place in the 2020/21 academic year as a test of the national curriculum, with the standard unchanged. This will not only allow better targeted support to those who need it most but will also ensure that schools have the information they need to help inform ongoing teaching for the pupils affected by school closures.